Youth at QB has been winning in the NFL

As the Vikings reportedly consider Aaron Rodgers, recent history suggests they have nothing to fear with an inexperienced QB

© Brad Rempel-Imagn Images

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By Matthew Coller

Prior to the 2023 season, the San Francisco 49ers’ brass went to quarterback Brock Purdy and told him that he might have to be patient despite taking them to the NFC Championship the previous season. They informed Purdy they were going to pursue legendary quarterback Tom Brady with hopes that he would return to the NFL for one more season. They figured Purdy could sit behind the GOAT for one year and then take over at the helm after they took one big swing at the Super Bowl.

The 49ers were entranced by Brady’s legendary career, even if the iconic QB was coming off an 8-9 season in which he averaged his lowest yards per attempt since 2002. But Brady decided to remain in retirement and Purdy took the 49ers to the Super Bowl behind good coaching and a stacked roster.

Maybe you can already sense where this is going…

Even the smartest teams can be held hostage by fear and fallacy. San Francisco nearly made a mistake in not turning the ball over to Purdy because they were afraid that his 5-0 small sample size success in 2022 was unsustainable and that he wasn’t ready to take a monster veteran team back to the Super Bowl. They also thought that Brady would somehow be different from his down 2022 year because he was playing for them rather than someone else.

According to reports from The Athletic, the Minnesota Vikings are facing a similar conundrum as it pertains to Aaron Rodgers. The most recent report states that the ball is in Kevin O’Connell’s court and that he’s mulling over a chance to coach Rodgers. KOC has to decide: Does he ask 2024 10th overall pick JJ McCarthy to sit behind a legend for one year while they take a swing at Rodgers finding his old self or head down a path of uncertainty with the youngster?

The fallacy exists in the idea that Rodgers is the safer of the two paths. Since 2021, Rodgers has started 34 games (not counting his Achilles-tear game) and won 13 of them. He has a 90.7 QB rating in that span, which would have played 17th in the NFL last year. He was graded 14th by PFF in 2024 and 11th in 2022.

Rodgers was also sacked 40 times last year. He ranked 25th in ESPN’s QBR metric, right behind Kirk Cousins. Yes, “he can still spin it.” The future Hall of Famer graded by PFF as the 9th best deep passer in the league but he was 21st in intermediate passing. The Jets passing game ranked 20th in Expected Points Added.

Oh, Rodgers also reportedly wants to be paid more than Sam Darnold’s $33 million with the Seattle Seahawks. Has a veteran middling quarterback with a big paycheck worked out in the past?

History is a pretty mixed bag of results when it comes to wild swings for formerly great quarterbacks. The Bucs got a Super Bowl out of Brady but Brady also won a lot of Super Bowls. The Colts were a train wreck with Matt Ryan. The Broncos and Steelers didn’t get much from Russell Wilson. Kurt Warner went to a Super Bowl in Arizona. Viking Donovan McNabb went downhill quickly.

There isn’t a clear example that’s going to give us the answer about how it would go in Minnesota. Is it possible that the Vikings could jam Rodgers’s contract into their current salary cap and that he could find the fountain of youth and sling crazy dimes to Justin Jefferson in 2009 Favre-like fashion and carry the Vikings deep into the playoffs? Yes. It’s every bit as likely that in 2010 Favre-like fashion Rodgers could keep being the same QB he’s been since winning MVP in 2021 and crumble a good roster and destroy all the good will and credibility that O’Connell has built up since arriving in 2022.

Once upon a time…many times actually… the Vikings have felt like the only rational choice was to give the fading legend one more kick at the can but today’s NFL has young quarterbacks abound who are winning and leading their teams deep into the postseason despite a lack of experience. Purdy’s Super Bowl start was just the 23rd of his career (including playoffs).

In 2024, Washington was able to surround No. 2 overall pick Jayden Daniels with enough talent and coaching to reach the NFC Championship game. The loss to the Eagles was only his 20th career start. In Denver, Bo Nix took a flawed Broncos team to the postseason in his first year and finished 6th in the NFL in touchdown passes. Michael Penix Jr. nearly led the Falcons to the postseason as well.

This is not a new thing just for 2024. In 2023, CJ Stroud won a playoff game as a rookie for Houston. First-time starter Jordan Love was one drive away from the NFC Championship game. As bad as the 2021 draft class turned out, rookie Mac Jones made the postseason with the Patriots in his first year.

The 2020 draft class saw Justin Herbert sling 31 touchdowns as a rookie. Remember: The Chargers started Tyrod Taylor and Herbert only played because of a freak injury to Taylor. Joe Burrow reached the Super Bowl in Year 2. His rookie year was chopped in half due to an injury. Jalen Hurts made the Super Bowl in his second season as a full-time starter and Tua Tagovailoa won 13 of 21 starts despite some battles with his head coach.

Lamar Jackson was an MVP by Year 2. Josh Allen made the playoffs as a sophomore. Even Mitch Trubisky as a second-year QB with a stacked roster would have won a playoff game if not for a double-doink.

Jared Goff led the No. 1 offense in the NFL in his second year. Carson Wentz was on an MVP track in Year 2 before suffering an injury.

That’s a lot of recent success from young quarterbacks with good supporting casts.

Had JJ McCarthy never set foot on a practice field or in an NFL facility, we might be talking about a different story. It’s been said that he is “essentially a rookie,” but that’s not really true. He spent his entire summer 2024 battling with Brian Flores’s defense in practice. He greatly improved his throwing technique, led 2-minute drills, played in a preseason game against real NFL players. And he watched Sam Darnold go through it all. The weekly game planning and practice. The hits, the highs and lows, the criticism and the pain of losing in the playoffs. McCarthy worked behind the scenes as if he was starting and is presumably working his way back with the same effort that he learned the playbook between minicamp and training camp last year.

That’s not exactly zero sample size to project with.

If McCarthy isn’t physically ready, then a desperate move for Rodgers would make more sense but if that was the case, why wouldn’t the Vikings make more of an effort to keep Darnold? His contract with Seattle is essentially a one-year deal, as reported by PFT. Why would they not be connected to any other veteran QBs? Is this just about the allure of an all-time great?

It seems the decision at quarterback is going to come down to whether the Vikings want to buy into the past or the future.

The team’s history since Fran Tarkenton has been about the constant search for a quarterback who can stabilize the franchise. Daunte Culpepper was nearly that QB. Teddy Bridgewater could have been that QB. But knee injuries took away the opportunity for the team to have the most important position settled for a decade. Nobody knows for sure whether McCarthy is going to be that guy but the Vikings aren’t going to find out by sitting him on the bench.

Talk about fear, by the way. If the Vikings sit McCarthy for a year and fail to make the playoffs with Rodgers, it will be a gargantuan disaster. They will have wasted star players’ primes and older players’ last peak years and gained no more information about their future.

Wait, that sounds like the 2024 Jets and 2022 Packers, doesn’t it?

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